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    Drying Prune Plums (And Figs, Apricots, Peaches, and Nectarines)

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    Chelsea Green Publishing
    This document discusses methods for drying fruits and vegetables. It recommends using an electric food dehydrator as the most economical and effective method. For drying plums specifically, it describes picking ripe plums and cutting them in half before placing cut-side up in the dehydrator without any pretreatments. The same process can be used for drying halved figs, apricots, peaches, and nectarines.

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    Drying Prune Plums (And Figs, Apricots, Peaches, and Nectarines)

    Uploaded by

    Chelsea Green Publishing
    15K views1 page
    This document discusses methods for drying fruits and vegetables. It recommends using an electric food dehydrator as the most economical and effective method. For drying plums specifically, it describes picking ripe plums and cutting them in half before placing cut-side up in the dehydrator without any pretreatments. The same process can be used for drying halved figs, apricots, peaches, and nectarines.

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    From The Resilient Gardener: Food Production and Self-Reliance in Uncertain Times

    Original Title

    Drying Plums

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    This document discusses methods for drying fruits and vegetables. It recommends using an electric food dehydrator as the most economical and effective method. For drying plums specifically, it describes picking ripe plums and cutting them in half before placing cut-side up in the dehydrator without any pretreatments. The same process can be used for drying halved figs, apricots, peaches, and nectarines.

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    15K views1 page

    Drying Prune Plums (And Figs, Apricots, Peaches, and Nectarines)

    Uploaded by

    Chelsea Green Publishing
    This document discusses methods for drying fruits and vegetables. It recommends using an electric food dehydrator as the most economical and effective method. For drying plums specifically, it describes picking ripe plums and cutting them in half before placing cut-side up in the dehydrator without any pretreatments. The same process can be used for drying halved figs, apricots, peaches, and nectarines.

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    of 1

    Diet and Food Resilience

    to live in a desert). In addition, dirt and flies can


    be a problem. Oven drying uses a lot of energy
    and produces inferior, overcooked dried foods,
    when it works at all. Often it burns the produce.
    Ovens are not designed to run at temperatures
    low enough to dry food reliably.
    The modern electric dehydrator with its heat
    source and fan is actually cheaper than either
    canning or freezing by the time you consider,
    properly amortized, the costs of equipment and
    supplies. I believe that, these days, the electric
    dehydrator is the place to start learning about

    drying. Then one might move up or back to more


    natural methods, if desired. (A solar dehydrator, for example.) I use an Excalibur dehydrator
    for most purposes and strongly recommend it. I
    suspect, though, that much of the drying done
    by the American pioneers involved just hanging
    produce near the wood stove, and those with a
    wood stove today might explore that possibility.
    Many books, especially older books, spend a lot
    of time talking about pretreatments of produce to
    be dried with metabisulfites, ascorbic acid (vitamin C), or lemon juice in order to prevent brown-

    Drying Prune Plums (and Figs, Apricots, Peaches, and Nectarines)


    Prune plums are plums of varieties that are
    especially good for drying. They are also my
    favorite plum varieties for fresh eating. (Italian,
    Brooks, Stanley, and Imperial Epineause are
    some good prune plum varieties.) I dry prune
    plums by picking or shaking them off the trees,
    then collecting them in monolayers in flat
    cardboard trays (such as are discarded by grocery
    stores after they remove the six-packs of soda).
    The plums will shake off the tree when they are
    ready to ripen, but will still be hard enough at the
    shake-off stage to be quite resistant to bruising.
    Ive harvested immense amounts by shaking
    the trees every two or three days and collecting
    until the harvest is over. I let the plums ripen to
    perfection indoors, examining them daily. Its
    easiest to tell prime ripeness by squeezing each
    plum very gently.
    To process for drying, I rinse the plums (if
    necessary), cut them in half, and flip the seed out
    with my finger. Then I pop the backs as I place

    each half in the dehydrator (cut side up). Pop


    the backs simply means pressing against the
    skin side of each half to turn the half inside out.
    No pretreatments are necessary. The optimum
    temperature for drying is 135F. The drying takes
    place from the cut surface, not through the skin.
    So it isnt necessary to turn the plum halves over,
    and they dont stick to the drying surface.
    The same process is used to dry halved figs
    and freestone varieties of apricots, peaches, and
    nectarines. All other fruits require additional
    work to remove cores or seeds and/or to slice
    for drying. Sliced fruit takes much more space
    in the dehydrator than fruit that can be dried
    in halves. And sliced fruit must be turned over
    piece by piece part way through the drying; plus
    it sticks to the drying surface. So if you love dried
    fruit but are as resistant to processing labor as I
    am, look first to prune plums, figs, and freestone
    varieties of apricots, peaches, and nectarines.

    87

    Resilient Gardener final pages.indd 87

    8/24/10 10:26 AM

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